"No reading at the breakfast table"

I was asked the question recently by a first-time mum, "But how do you afford  5 kids?". I actually didn't know what to say.  In the end I cobbled together an answer -  'well, we've never had a lot of money', 'we don't go on fancy holidays', 'they go to public schools', 'live in a three bedroom house', 'we eat a lot of mince'.  I was a bit hopeless.  I suspect it is a question that others would like to ask too. So I've been thinking.  How do we afford our kids?  I don't actually know - I do know that we have trusted in God to look after us and we've never been hungry or homeless (except for one week in 2006 ... story for another day!). But we've made it this far and for some of the years we had no income when Rowan was studying and for most of the time we've had one income.  We've always worked hard to live within the limits of the income that we have.  It's often tight financially, but I don...

After the week we've just had, I am finding much joy in cleaning my house, doing the washing, shopping for meals ahead of time - sometimes housework actually gives me joy! This week has been one of those 'I hope we don't have too many of these' weeks.  Our 10 yo has been on crutches after fracturing her ankle playing netball and our 9 yo was terribly unwell with the flu (at one point Scarlet Fever was suggested - scary).  I've never seen her so unwell.  She basically didn't leave the lounge for five days - hardly said a word, rarely ate.  It was so strange when she joined us at the dinner table and was part of the conversation.  Against this backdrop we fitted in a two hour visit to the hospital for the fracture clinic (cast now off thankfully).  Plus a 3000 word uni assignment handed in on Monday and busy week at work for me (the NSS and then a library open day). So I'm very thankful to my incredible, sacrificial husband who rearranged his life so I c...

A man arrives home from a hard day at work to find the house in chaos.  The sink's full of dirty dishes, there's damp laundry sitting in the washing machine, the baby's running around crying with a full nappy and the toddler is tossing CDs off the back deck. His wife is nowhere in sight.  Frantically, fearing something disastrous has happened, he searches the house, and eventually finds her sitting up in bed in her nightie, calmly eating chocolates and watching The Bold and the Beautiful . 'What happened?' he gasps. The wife turns down the volume with the remote and says, 'You know how you always ask me what I do all day?  Well, today I didn't do it.' From A pressure cooker saved my life  by Juanita Phillips, 2010.

Big day tomorrow for children's librarian's across Australia. We're celebrating National Simultaneous Storytime with the book 'Feathers for Phoebe' by Rod Clement.  It tells the story of a small grey bird Phoebe who wants to be noticed so goes to her glamourous friend Zelda for help.  Zelda offers many new crests, wings and tails to make Phoebe beautiful but Phoebe ends up so dressed up that she can't actually fly. It's a story of learning contentment with who you are and what you look like - it's a lovely little story. The children's team that I'm involved with at work are going to act out the story with puppets and props - should be a riot.  We're looking forward to a fun morning.

Over at his blog Trevor Cairney has reviewed a new book by Pam Allyn called 'Best Books for Boys'.  I'm really interested in this topic because it's the No. 1 question I get asked at work by parents looking for books for their sons.  I'll be getting this book and having a read. Check out some of my old posts about boys , reading and book recommendations.

My 4 year old sucks her thumb and it makes her very happy.  And since it makes her happy it makes the whole family happy.  However, her teeth aren't happy.  And she's getting too old for it. So what to do?  I have no idea.  Some of the other kids had dummies.  They were easy to get rid of.  But this is my first thumb sucker. Would love suggestions and I'll tell you how we go.

'When Grandpa Sang' came across my path a few months ago.  I love seeing great books written by Australian authors and I'm keen to support good writing. Written by Margaret Just (from Adelaide) it tells the story of a Grandpa who wants to sing and loves to sing, but is really quite bad at it (even the people in the church find him hard to listen to).  He has singing lessons, learns to sing and everyone loves listening to him. This book has beautifully hand drawn, colourful illustrations with repetitive text that is great for pre readers. You can actually read the whole book here  http://www.whengrandpasang.com/read-the-story.html  and you can order your own copy from the website.  I'm thinking of getting a few for my present box.